Parking for Twelve Customers in One Spot

Excellent article in Thurday's Post-Gazette by Annie Tubbs: As more workers make the commute by bike, cyclists campaign for rights, improved safety. It's well written, accurate, non-inflammatory.

Bicycling in Pittsburgh has come a long way, and it's about to take a few more giant steps.

The Jail Trail closure at Bates Street opens in October.
The HofBrauHaus river-trail-park opens in October.
The Montour Trail - Airport connection opens in October.

Once a little progress is made, we usually can see more progress that's needed. As Ms. Tubbs' article points out, bike infrastructure and bike parking is much less evident outside of the city proper.

Philadelphia is running a novel experiment in which they use one (1) parking spot on a street to provide parking for twelve (XII) cars. Here's the original situation at time=0.

Here's a "bike corral" placed in one vehicle parking space:

(more pictures here)

It seems like something that could be used effectively in several places in the city and the exurbs. They'd be like welcome mats for the Creatives that Richard Florida keeps talking about; possibly no better way to kickstart gentrification than placing a few of these. I'd love to see one of these bike corrals in Millvale by <hungry> Pamela's Pancakes </hungry>.